Picks Of The Week (07.01.23

1. VISLA - Critical Presents: Binary Vol.26 💎 [Critical Music]

Recommended if you like: En:vy, Buunshin, Koherent
Listen: Spotify | SoundCloud

Is it really still a Hidden Gem™️ if they are already releasing on Critical? Probably not. Considering this is only his second release, however, I'm still gonna introduce him as such. So let's talk about this week's Hidden Gem Of The Week™️, VISLA!

The captain steering this capslocked production vessel is James "Jake" Cummins. Born on the Isle Of Man, but raised in Odiham and nowadays residing in Reading, the UK-based artist has always been close to one of the cultural hubs of the scene. While someone who has as little grasp on British geography as I have might think I'm talking about the DnB capital Bristol, I'm actually referring to London here. Duh! While he also played in a band for a year or so, his growing interest in electronic music and more specifically DnB made him seek out a career as a DJ and producer. Under the name of J.K.E he was tearing up any and all dancefloors in the region, while occasionally dropping original productions too, most notably his double single on Sinbiotic Sounds. "Most notably" in this case meaning it's the only trace of his early productions that I could find.

However, during the pandemic he took the time to rebrand himself, going from the cryptic acronym J.K.E to the equally cryptic, but way more googleable alias VISLA. In 2021, he unveiled the project with his first free download, VEIL, followed by his winning entry to En:vy's Unspoken remix competition and his edit of 100gecs - Hand Crushed By A Mallet. Right from the start, the VISLA project had support from the likes of Overview, IMANU and basically all of the deep/dark/minimal underground scene (which is how I found about him in the first place!), so it was only a matter of time before the official releases started rolling in. That he would go from his absolutely not mid mid-2022 debut EP on Deep Within Recordings to becoming the latest entry in Critical Music's Binary series, which introduced the likes of IMANU (as Signal), Monty, Cauzer and En:vy to the scene, in less than half a year, is still not something I had on my 2023 bingo card. All the more reason to talk about it here!

This 26th volume of the newcomer series flies out the gate with the fast-paced rave anthem Vandal. Everything you might want in a warehouse rave banger is here, from the forward-driving rolling drums, the rave-y sound effects, including that old-school pewpew one that sounds like something straight out of an 00's racing game, a pounding bassline, growls of pure menace interjecting in regular intervals and warehouseloads of atmosphere. After getting us up to speed with the opener, VISLA descends into the deepest of the darkest depths with his attempt at getting that sweet sweet Nike sponsorship deal, Nike Tech Windbreaker. With some truly heavy bass stabs bouncing on top of a minimalistic steppy rhythm, supported by a wall of subbass and punctuated by a great use of almost intimidating vocal samples, the Windbreaker really is a banger for all seasons.

Speaking of bangers, next up we've got the flashiest of them all, Flashbang. After the excursion into the purely minimalistic, this one is a return to the fast-paced business of the opener, with continously flowing, quick-firing drums, and an intense call-and-response between rapid bassline stabs and all sorts of vocal samples and sound effects chopped together super quickly. Lastly, we've got the main star of the release, Morpheus. As heard in various A.M.C and Buunshin b2b IMANU sets over the last year or so, this one has been making the rounds, as they say. Equipped with the infamous "Take Me Up" sample from Omni Trio's Renegade Snares (not originally, but you get me), VISLA takes us on a trip through memory lane by effortlessly combining breaky rhythms and huge walls of bass, resulting in something that has the raw feel of the earliest of oldschool bangers, while still sporting an almost ridiculous level of precision in its production.

While I'm a bit sad, because his name is surprisingly hard to make good puns with, I can't help but enjoy everything he puts out immensely. His self-released originals and his first EP were already a strong indicator that VISLA is one of the best newcomers in the deep and dark scene, and that belief was only further cemented by these four new tracks here. In other words, this EP is VISLA-mazing. See, it just sounds strange!

Other deep and dark releases from this week:

Audeon - Don't You Know / Resonance 💎
Wingz - Light Up / Can't See
Exept, Disprove - XXX (OZOH Remix)
Sweetpea, Iris - DFS
Vici - Egotic / Shocked
Jam Thieves - Bandolero EP
Sign - Farewell, Complex of Unfulfilled Dreams Petrichor 💎

2. Laminar - Make It Through [Azure Audio]

Recommended if you like: Andromedik, T & Sugah, NCT
Listen: Spotify | SoundCloud | YouTube

From one Reading-based newcomer to another, let's talk about Laminar!

It has only been around two and a half years since now 21-year-old Kian Kasler (it's literally his birthday today! Happy birthday!) started releasing his music, but he has actually been having a go at this production thing since he was around 13. While he always enjoyed all sorts of different electronic music, it was the high energy of the genre that drove him right into DnB's arms. After his lovely debut Tesselate in 2019, it was his remix of ATTLAS' Half Light on none other than mau5trap in the following year that really put him on the map. Just a couple months later, he was shortlisted as one of the top 5 winners of Koven's Track And Build 2.0. competition, resulting in his debut on the label behemoth that is NoCopyrightSounds. You might remember that competition from my review of V O E's Giants, way back in the day! But nevermind that, we're here for Laminar! Since that release, Kian has been putting out a couple of tracks here and there, sometimes via Emanate, sometimes via his self-release label Azure Audio, before taking a bit of a break in 2022. As you can probably tell, however, we have already made it through said break!

For most of his self-released singles, Laminar has been on a Liquid vibe (there's a joke about laminar flow in there somewhere), but for this glorious return called Make It Through he went the Dancefloor anthem route. And when I say anthem, I mean it. Not only is the vocal used here just lovely, the synth work in the backdrop for the buildup is also seriously stunning, that main melody in the drop is dangerously catchy and the drums hit the exact right spot. However, while each element is already wonderful on its own, he managed to arrange them in such a perfect way that the end result becomes even better than the sum of its parts. Everything, from the structure of it all to the little details, just works. For instance, halfway through the drop there's this short part where the whole arrangement is sharply cutting in and out in between each note of the melody and I just can't get enough of it.

With quality tunes like this, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see Laminar on the lineups of Liquicity or similarly big labels in the future. A proper anthem.

Other dancefloor releases of the week:

Doctor Werewolf - Party Wolf EP
Protostar, Alora, Danyka Nadeau - Affection
Ray Volpe - Laserbeam (Blanke's ÆON:REMIX)
Mob Tactics - Beyond The Circus EP Pt. 1
Sound In Noise, Aktive, OHKAY - Restart
I.C.U - Echoes
Drop Frame - The Lantern